Another chocolate-house was White’s, now White’s Club, St. James’s Street. As a chocolate-house it was established about 1698, near the bottom of the west side of St. James’s Street; it was burnt down in 1773. Plate VI. of Hogarth’s ’Rake’s Progress’ shows a room full of players at White’s, so intent upon play as neither to see the flames nor hear the watchmen bursting into the room. It was indeed a famous gambling and betting club, a book for entering wagers always lying on the table; the play was frightful. Once a man dropped down dead at the door, and was carried in; the club immediately made bets whether he was dead or only in a fit; and when they were going to bleed him the wagerers for his death interposed, saying it would affect the fairness of the bet. Walpole, who tells the story, hints that it is invented. Many a highwayman—one is shown in Hogarth’s picture above referred to—there took his chocolate or threw his main before starting for business. There Lord Chesterfield gamed; Steele dated all his love news in the _Tatler_ from White’s, which was known as the rendezvous of infamous sharpers and noble cullies, and bets were laid to the effect that Sir William Burdett, one of its members, would be the first baronet who would be hanged. The gambling went on till dawn of day; and Pelham, when Prime Minister, was not ashamed to divide his time between his official table and the piquet table at White’s. General Scott was a very cautious player, avoiding all indulgence in excesses at table, and thus managed to win at White’s no less than £200,000, so that when his daughter, Joanna, married George Canning he was able to give her a fortune of £100,000.
Another club founded specially for gambling was Almack’s, the original Brooks’s, which was opened in Pall Mall in 1764. Some of its members were Macaronis, the fops of the day, famous for their long curls and eye-glasses. ’At Almack’s,’ says Walpole, ’which has taken the _pas_ of White’s ... the young men of the age lose £10,000, £15,000, £20,000 in an evening.’ The play at this club was only for rouleaux of £50 each, and generally there was £10,000 in gold on the table. The gamesters began by pulling off their embroidered clothes, and put on frieze garments, or turned their coats inside out for luck. They put on pieces of leather to save their lace ruffles; and to guard their eyes from the light, and to prevent tumbling their hair, wore high-crowned straw hats with broad brims, and sometimes masks to conceal their emotions. Almack’s afterwards was known as the ’Goose-Tree’ Club—a rather significant name—and Pitt was one of its most constant frequenters, and there met his adherents. Gibbon also was a member, when the club was still Almack’s—which, indeed, was the name of the founder and original proprietor of the club.